Dismantling Islam: Session 1

You guys excited for this morning? Awesome! Well, I just want to start by, uh, giving a little introduction to this morning and laying out some context. You guys all know that on October 7th, a tragedy happened: from Gaza, there was an attack on Israel by Hamas that killed many, many, many Jewish people. Now today, the world is watching Israel, and what we're seeing, ironically, is that Muslims everywhere have become more and more emboldened to share their faith because the question is, what is at the root of what happened in that attack? The truth is,

it's an ideology. The enemies are not the Muslims themselves, but it is the ideology. It is Islam. And so that is why we're having this evening. Something you may not realize is that in mosques and across the nation — across the world — Muslims gather way more often than Christians gather, and they have topics like: why the Trinity is false, how Jesus did not die on the cross, and why the Bible was not inspired by God but has contradictions. These are the types of topics that they get together and discuss. We as Christians need to

be prepared with arguments to talk about these things. That’s why today we’ve brought an expert with us, Dr. J. Smith, who I’m going to be introducing in just a moment. But you guys need to remember that you're hearing a lot about politics today, but that is just the fruit of the issue. The root is the ideology. The root of the issue is the worldview. The root of the issue is Islam. So before Dr. J comes out, would you join me in prayer? Father, we come before you this morning, Lord, and we are thankful that we

are able to gather here in a country that still provides us the freedom to have a discussion and a teaching like this, Lord. Lord, we know that we’re living in the last days and that you’re coming soon, but until that day comes, Lord God, you’ve asked us to have an answer for the hope that is within us. So, Lord, I pray that you would just anoint this morning, Lord God, that this would be just a fire hose of truth. May this be like a ripple effect, Lord, as the truth goes out and is planted into

the hearts and minds of all of us here. Lord, would we take that truth, and would we be able to spread it to those around us — our Muslim neighbors, our Muslim co-workers, those that we are going to encounter? Lord, may we not fear, but Lord, as Your Word says, perfect love casts out all fear. Lord God, may the love of God compel us to share with them the truth that we’re going to hear this morning. Lord, we lift up the nation of Israel to you and the tragedy that has come upon that nation. Lord,

we know that it didn't catch you by surprise; Lord, that you are sovereign, you’re in control. But because of the free will that you've given us as human beings, there is evil in this world. So, Lord, we pray for all those who have been affected by this evil, and Lord, may you use each of us, Lord God, to bring righteousness, Lord, to bring goodness into this world. While so many are spending their lives plotting and planning how to make their evil schemes a reality in people’s lives, Lord, may we spend our lives doing the same

for righteousness' sake. So, Lord, we thank you for this morning. May you be glorified. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. Really quick, there’s going to be a PowerPoint up on the screen pretty soon that Dr. J is going to present. If you want that PowerPoint, we’re actually going to send it to your email, so there’s nothing that you need to do. You’ve already registered for the event, and so we’ll send you the email with the PowerPoint attached to it. Dr. J has taught numerous courses at the university level on Islam for years. He has debated radical

Muslims in London at Speaker’s Corner, and today he travels the globe sharing his groundbreaking research in some of the most hard-to-reach Muslim countries in the world. Please give a warm welcome for our dear friend of this church, Dr. J. Smith. Thanks. I'm going to go ahead. Okay, terrific! Well, one of the reasons I’m here today is because back in September, before the atrocities of October 7th, I was here to do a Wednesday night. At that time, we wanted to introduce this new historical material that seems like no one’s ever seen or heard, though we’ve been

working with it for over 25 years — actually, 28 years I’ve been working with it. Then, of course, the atrocities happened on October 7th, and you know the rest of the story. But to understand what was happening or what was going on in the minds of those men who were coming in and attacking the Jews so barbarically, and to understand why all over the world there were Muslims who were going to the streets and praising those attacks — to understand that, and here’s where many Americans are having difficulty — you need to go back really

to just this book right here. This is it; it’s all right here. How many of you have read this book in English? Just raise your hands. Very few of you. And that’s the problem. You’re not going to understand the mindset of Islam until you read their Revelation. This is their Eternal Revelation. This is... The revelation that every Muslim must follow, whether they are radical or nominal—possibly not the liberals, but 99.99% of all Muslims—follows this book. However, the vast majority of Muslims don't read this book because, in order to read it, you must do so in

Arabic, and only 15% of Muslims speak Arabic. It's the radicals over here who are the ones reading this book, and they're reading it in Arabic and they understand it in Arabic. They're the ones who are actually finding verse after verse after verse, like chapter 9:5, "Slay the unbeliever wherever you find them; besiege them; lay in wait for them with every kind of ambush." There’s no dictate on who you’re to slay; it says, "Slay the unbelievers." That's everybody that's not a Muslim. Chapter 9:29, in more specificity, "Make war on the Alab," that would be the people

of the book—that's us—they're to make war upon us. Chapter 8, verse 60: "Use any steeds of war to cause terror in the hearts." They’re to use terror. Chapter 8:39: "Slay the unbeliever until there is no more fitna, no more unbelief, and all believe in Allah." So these are general categories with general applications for all Muslims and all believers: the unbelievers—that's us. Can you see then why those who are reading this book are doing what they're doing? Chapter 47:1, 2, and 3 defines who a believer is, a Muslim believer, and who an unbeliever is; and then

verse four says, "Cut off the heads of the unbelievers." Were you wondering why ISIS was doing just that? Chapter 5:33: "For those who do not follow Allah or his Prophet, crucify them and cut off their hands and feet from opposite ends." Remember ISIS doing that in Syria? And yet everybody thought this was just barbarism. No, it's not barbarism for the Muslim who follows this book. You've got to read the book. Now, would we not say the same thing as Christians—to know who we believe and to know what we are to do? What do we do?

We read a better book. You notice a bigger book? I keep it bigger for a reason; the bigger, the better the book. And when Jack Hib comes up here, does he not have this book in his hand? Please say yes. Does he not open it and read it? Please say yes. Does he not execute it for you? And can you read it in your own tongue? Yes, you can read it in English; you can read it in any language you want. That's the difference between these two books. This is a book to be read. This

is a book to be followed by everybody. All of us are to read this book, yes, and we're to follow the person in this book. His name is Jesus Christ. Now, the Muslims are to read this book, but they never do. The only time they will read this book, the vast majority—that 85%—is to memorize it in a language they don't understand. So, in order to understand what's going on in the world right now, you've got to read the book, but not just read the book; follow the man behind the book, and his name is Muhammad.

That's why today what we're going to do is confront both the book and the man. I have to confront those two. I've been doing it for 40 years. This has been my work; this has been my whole life. I'm a pist. A pist is someone who goes on the attack. I have a doctorate in this area. I'm the only one in the world that has a doctorate in Islamic PMICS, and that means to go on the offense. Much like your football team, defense would be apologetics; offense would be PMICS. I'm a pist and an apologist

too, but I don't want you to confront this book internally. I'm not going to ask you to do that today. I'm not going to ask you to open its pages and read the verses and then try to execute it. I don't want you to get into theological debate; let others do that, because then you will have to know Arabic, and I know none of you want to learn Arabic. That's one of the biggest fears I get wherever I go: "I want people to work in Islam; I just don't want to learn Arabic." I don't want

you to have to learn Arabic either. What I want you to do today is look at the material I'm going to introduce, which has nothing to do with Arabic. Oh, I might show a few words here and there, but I'm going to help you read them real clear so you can see why they differ. That's about it. What’s more, everything I'm going to introduce this morning has to do with historical criticism—the same criticisms that were applied against our Bible and against Jesus Christ in the 1800s. I'm going to use redactive criticism today: source, form, and

especially textual criticism. Now, these are big words. Don't worry; you won't even know that I'm doing it. But these are the criticisms that were being used by the Germans in Tübingen University there in the 1800s, housing the documentary hypothesis. These were the criticisms that were attacking our Bible, attacking our Lord Jesus, attacking the historicity of whether he lived or died, whether he lived in Jerusalem and rose again. All these attacks that were coming in the late 1800s decimated the church. By 1905, the church almost got eradicated in Europe and never really has recovered in the

last 100 years. It's only about 5 to 7% that go to church in Europe because of historical criticism. And Darwinianism, see, those criticisms, however, have been answered. We have, in the last 100 years, answered every one of those criticisms. That's why today we can now take those same criticisms and apply them to Islam, and that's what I'm going to do this morning. So everything I'm going to do today has to do with manuscripts, has to do with coins, has to do with inscriptions, has to do with buildings, and yes, maps and timelines, which means you're

going to have to look at the screens. Like I said before, don't look at me; just follow the screens and follow what's on the PowerPoint. As we go through, I will go a lot slower than I did in September. I walked up the aisle, and people said, “Are you going to go slower? Please go slower; we couldn’t follow you.” So I promise I will go slower. I have four hours to get through it, but George wants me to make sure I show you these books. This is the one I showed you back in September. This

is the DVD series looking at the Bible in history, looking at the British Museum. I lived there for 25 years, and we had a tour of the British Museum where we just unpacked all the amazing artifacts that supported 1 and 2 Kings, 1 and 2 Chronicles, and the book of Isaiah—an enormous amount of reference after reference that supported who Abraham was. So that's the DVD series. Sam Solomon is a great friend of mine, and he wrote this book here. It looks at the mosque, but it examines the importance of this structure for the Muslim community.

He came out of Islam. This man had me memorize the Quran by heart in Arabic, Urdu, and in English— all three languages—so he can recall any verse at any time. What an amazing man he is! A good friend of mine who lives in London. This is another book that just came out in 2019. Some of this I'm going to use today. In fact, I'm kind of glad I have it in my hand so I can hold it up. I’m going to unpack what Dr. Dan Brewbaker did in this book: just 22 examples of looking at

the manuscript variants. These are the consonantal variants, and this one by Abd al-Aziz al-Adi is titled "Is the Quran Infallible?"—probably one of the standard classic books that we all use. I usually give this book to people who are just beginning in how to deal with the Quran. Great books! They’re on the book table in the back; make sure you sell them out because he's flown all the way from North Carolina just to help you out with these books and many, many more that he has on the table. So let's get right into the PowerPoint. Basically,

we're going to do a historical critique of Islam's origin. Now, to do that, let me just give you an example of why I'm even doing this. Back when I was asked to go to London, my wife and I had been working in West Africa in Sagol, and we were asked to come to London because there was a real radicalizing form of Islam that was on all the doorsteps. What I mean by that is, it wasn't the English who were radicalizing; it was Indians, Pakistanis, and Bangladeshis who had all immigrated to England. As the colonial power,

England then opened its doors after 1947 and allowed many of these groups to come and settle in England, particularly Muslims. So much so that in a city like London, with 10 to 14 million people, 1 million of them are Muslims. A tenth of the population of London is now Islamic. As people were going door to door, they were coming across a very radical form of Islam. When I say radical, I mean Orthodox—form of Islam radical. They go back to the root. They are basically Muslims who refer back to this book, and they were reading this

book and applying it. They are the ones that were actually causing a lot of problems and have been causing a lot of problems in Britain. If you've been watching the news, you will see, over and over again, we’ve had attack after attack after attack. We have our number 77; you have 9/11. July the 7th, 2005, when four young men came and blew themselves up and killed 52 people there in London. Now, because of that, they needed some help. By that time, I had a master's in apologetics and another master's in Islamic studies, melding the two

together. I was a perfect fit to go to London and to kind of take these guys and gals on, and boy, was it fun! For 25 years, I was down at a place called Speaker’s Corner, where they all came and congregated. I got up on a little ladder—oh, about the size of those little kitchen ladders you have in your kitchen, just two rungs—so my head was above the crowd. I would then engage with them, sometimes a hundred at a time, sometimes a thousand at a time, and we would be engaging in all these questions they

were throwing at me. But I had no support; I had no background; I had no apologetics for these kinds of questions because there’s no school in the world that teaches you Islamic apologetics. Am I correct? Well, that was in 1992. Now, in 2023, we have a school, and we are teaching Islamic apologetics, and it belongs to you all because it is part of Veritas International University, which is your seminary. Did you know that? Know that, did you? You've got a seminary called Veritos International University for all the Calvary Chapel churches. We have now put an

entire program together at Veritos called MAPI, Master of Arts in ISL, in apologetics and polemics to Islam—the first in the world—and it's a Calvary Chapel venture. Now, that was back in 1992; we didn't have answers for that back then, and I had no idea how to deal with this new material. So we kind of had to learn by the seat of our pants: just do it, take a little notebook, hear all the questions, and go home. There was no internet back then, so we had to go to our commentaries; we had to get on the

phone, get to anybody we could, and say, "How do you answer this? How do you answer this? How do you answer this?" And then, finally, by building up our apologetics, we became more and more able. Then, in 1994, I started taking a class called the Origins of Islam at the School of Oriental and African Studies there in the University of London under a man named Dr. Gerald Hating. I thought this was curious; I'd like to see what they're talking about. What do you mean, the origins of Islam? We all know how Islam began, right? Don't

you? It began with a man named Muhammad, right? Who received revelation, correct, over a period of 22 years, from 610 to 632. That's what you've been told, right? So I went in thinking this would just be another rehash of the Islamic traditions. On the first day that we were there, he said, "Do you know, when you look at the Dome of the Rock—now you've all seen that big structure, the Dome of the Rock, right there in the middle of Jerusalem—it has no qiblah, which means it has no direction of prayer. How can you have a

mosque that doesn't have a qiblah? Every mosque is directed towards Mecca. The qiblah wall is the longest wall in every mosque, and that's where you always pray towards Mecca. It doesn't matter where you are in the world; every mosque has a qiblah, but this one didn't." Then he said, "You know that we don't have any reference to a guy named Muhammad at all in the seventh century? We have no biography at all from the seventh or eighth centuries; we have to go to the ninth century to get his first biography." Have you heard this before?

I started scratching my head; I hadn't heard this before. Well, in the class of 50 students, 25 of them were Muslims. They hadn't heard it before, either, and they were not at all pleased with what they were hearing. One after another, they got up, went to the door, walked out, and slammed the door behind them, saying some very unpleasant things to our professor. I looked at this, watching these guys go one after another, and I said, "This is amazing! These guys have no answer for this! Why haven't I been taught this?" I realized back in

1994 that I needed to take this down, so I started taking it down to Speaker's Corner to try to test it, and I got beat up. I got knocked unconscious, my glasses were broken—that's expensive when you get your glasses broken—and I realized that the only answer they had was to beat me up; they had no response to this. Because in order to respond to this, they're going to have to go back to the seventh century to find artifacts, to find any type of evidence to support who this man was, what this book was, and where

this place was. This is when I realized what great material this was. Not only that, but what a great polemic this was. Well, not all the Christians agreed with me, and the Christians in Britain got quite upset with me. So in 1997, this chap up here that you see on the upper hand now, named Colin, is a great friend of mine; we get along well. But being very English, he wanted to debate this. So we had a debate at Birmingham at C. Oaks College, just for other Christians; it was only for Christian scholars and Christian

missionaries. I was to debate Dr. Reverend David Marshall, who you see on the left there. Yes, that's what I looked like back then. I was trying to look like a Muslim—that was my attempt. I was trying to enculturate myself, and I was a radical Muslim at that time. Listen, my wife never liked that look, so that's why I decided to cut it down; she could never find my mouth to kiss me. So we had this debate in 1997, and the debate was on the issue of whether or not we could use historical criticism, and whether

or not we should use polemics with Muslims, because polemics causes anger; it just drives Muslims away. And historical criticism—look what it did to the church; look what it did to our scriptures! Why use something that damaged our scriptures so much? I had to scratch my head and say, "Hold on a minute! What historical criticism are you looking at? Are you still stuck back in the 1900s? Come to the 21st century; we've answered every one of those criticisms! And as far as polemics, what do you think Paul was doing in Bua Lap, Leoda Capid, and Ephesus?

Every church he went into, he went right into the synagogue and confronted the Jews with what they had done. That's polemics! Paul's whole ministry was in polemics, was it not? Yes, they threw him out of the synagogue. Sometimes they threw him..." into jail, he got whipped many times. Twice they tried to stone him to death; he caused a riot there in Ephesus, and they finally killed him in Rome. You don't get stoned; you don't get accused of riots unless you're using PMICs. His whole ministry was PMICs, and if that's what Paul did in the first

century, shouldn't we be using it in the 21st century? Amen! So I argued this way, and of course, Dr. Reverend David Marshall argued against me. At the end, they did a show of hands and wanted to see who would go with which side. Twenty-five went with me, and twenty-five went with Dr. David Marshall, and it was cut right down the line between the academics and the missionaries. Who would you guess went with me, the missionaries or the academics? "Miss, oh good for you, you're the first group that gets it!" That's right—the missionaries all went with

me, and all the academics went with David Marshall. I was curious about that, so Dr. Peter Reddell was in the car with me on the way home, and he explained it to me. He's an academic, and he said, "Jay, this is the problem: We as academics have a chair to protect. We belong in an institution where there are also other Muslims who are lecturers like us. We cannot use PMICs; it would cause division within academia, and we would be asked to leave. Therefore, we cannot use PMICs because of the chair that we protect and the

institution that we represent. You, however, you're not an academic; you're just a missionary on the ground, and the only person you're representing is Jesus Christ. Can you see why this really is our material? We're the ones that have to use it." That was back in 1997; I never looked back, and that's why from then on, we have been using this material. But why the historical critique? Why specifically this one? What is its value? Well, first of all, it confronts the foundations of Islam; it confronts the book of the man. We need to confront those too

because of what we're seeing all over the news every day now. Those men and those women who are sending those rockets up—where do you think they get the fuel? Where do you think they get the permission to do that? It's straight out of the Quran. Therefore, you've got to confront the Quran. Yes, you can confront them also on the ground, but sooner or later, you're going to have to confront their ideology, which motivates them, and that's what we're not doing. Our militaries can't do that, because you cannot confront ideology with bombs, bullets, and cruise missiles.

You can maintain security, but at some point, you're going to have to shut down Hamas; you're going to have to shut down the radicals. I just came from Nigeria on Monday. I was in Nigeria, and I was also in South Africa for a whole month. My wife is still waiting for me, bless her heart. In Nigeria, I went to Lagos, then to Abuja, and then we went to Jos, which is surrounded by Boko Haram. Folks, they are in a battle there. You need to pray for Nigeria! Don't go unless you really need to; it's not

a pleasant place to go to. But there in Nigeria are 232 million people—that's the largest country in Africa—110 million Muslims, by far the largest Muslim population anywhere in Africa, and they're coming south. They're moving down; they're now about ready to take over Jos, and that's why they asked me to come. They said, "We need help." I saw one of the best men I could ever see, one of the best warriors for God. His name is Apostle Isa Al-Buba. Just Google his name when you get home and see what a big man he is! He's a

tall 6'6", he used to be a Muslim, he's left Islam, and he has a church that's 15 stories high with a cross at the very top that dominates the skyline there in Jos. He is confronting Islam every day. That's why he asked me to come and help him; he needed this new material. We were late because our plane got canceled, which happens all the time in Nigeria, and we had to go overland, which they don't like me to do. So, we got in there late, and he was right there in front of hundreds of people,

going through all the apologetics on how to defend the Bible and how to confront the Quran right there in front of me. I said, "Why do you need me?" He said, "Because we need this material." This man has had nine attempts on his life—nine attempts! He has survived; he is a warrior for God! We don't have that problem here yet. So, we're going to make sure that we continue to go back. We now have six young men who have joined me; we're training them up on how to use this material all over Nigeria. It confronts

the very foundations of Islam. More than that, it is neutral; in other words, anybody can use this material. I'm going to introduce it today; anybody can use it because it's really answering three questions: Is it true? That's all it's answering. It is politically correct, and then you'll notice I won't say anything against Muhammad today; I'm not going to say anything against the Quran today; I'm not going to say anything against Muslims. I'm not going to use any... Hate speech? Nothing I'm going to say is Islamophobic; you'll see. That's why it's so easy to use; it

doesn't attack Muslims. Yeah, I do not use hate speech, and I will not be Islamophobic. It is easy to communicate. You will see almost everything I'm going to show you is visual; that's why I want you to look at the screens as we go through this talk. Don't look at me; I'm not important. It's what's on the screens that is important. Also, we have the best and the only antidote. We are the only ones that have the answer to this, and we are the only ones that have an alternative because we have also got a

book much better than their book. We also have a man much better than their man. So why are we going to study it? Well, there's this great poem by Robert Frost. I won't go through the whole poem, except for the last verse. You all remember it: he goes into the woods and he sees two paths, and he wants to know which path he should take. One path has a lot of briars on it, and it looks like it's never been used in years and years. The other path is quite well used; it's dirt, it's easy

to go; everything has been leveled out. So which path is he going to use? He decides to go to the path that no one has taken. I should be telling this with a sigh somewhere ages and ages hence: two roads diverged in the wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference. We have to take the road that no one has taken. We have to take this material; this is something no one else wants to use. No one else wants to go here because they're fearful of Islam,

and we're going to take the road that no one has bothered to take because everything I'm going to be saying today is going to confront the Islamic narrative. I'm going to be confronting the Islamic traditions; I'm going to be confronting everything that you have heard about Islam. Today, we choose the road less traveled by, and in time you'll see why. So the four areas I'm going to go to are: first, the problems with sources; I'll then move on to Mecca, from there to Muhammad, and then the problem with the Quran. So let's go ahead, and

let's talk about what it is we're referring to. Well, to understand what Islam believes and where they're going, you have to go to their standard Islamic narrative. Don't you love that? S-I-N—sin. We're going to have to confront sin. The Islamic traditions for both radicals and nominal liberals; to understand what the standard Islamic narrative says, you need to go and ask what they’ve been saying for the last 1,400 years. They say 1,400; we're going to change that today. What they say is this: all Muslims, whether they are radical or nominal—maybe not the liberals—say that Muhammad was

the last; he was the greatest prophet. He was the final prophet sent in 570 when he was born, and up until 632 when he died, he was sent to basically model Islam for the world and also to receive the Quran. Those are really his two pieces of work. Now, he didn't mean much more than that, as you'll see from the traditions, but those were his primary functions. It was that revelation that he received between 610 and 632 which is considered to be the greatest revelation. This is the final revelation; this is the revelation to correct.

This revelation is what they say needed to correct this. And every Muslim will agree to that. Why? Because we have corrupted God's holy word. At one time, this used to equal this; at one time, this had everything that this had. But we changed it; we manipulated, we accreted, deleted, and corrupted it. So therefore, this book had to be sent to bring it back to its original text. That's what they all say. And then, of course, as a result, Islam, as they say, is that final religion based on Muhammad’s life. What he did would be the

Sunnah; what he said would be the Hadith and the Quran's teachings. In conclusion, thus, Islam is dependent really on three things: the Quran, which would be the book; Muhammad, which would be the man; and Mecca, the place. I'm adding Mecca in there for a reason; you'll see why. Mecca, I think, is probably the best one to use because, obviously, it is still existing today. So in order to confront these three areas, which are foundational to Islam, we need to go back to when these three things existed. They all existed in the 7th century. Mecca was

there in the 7th century according to Islam. Muhammad was there in the 7th century, moving from Mecca to Medina in 622 and dying in 632. Also, the Quran was there because if you take the Quran and you just split it in half—go like this; this now, this is in Arabic, so it goes this direction. It goes the opposite direction. This would be Medina, which would be the city he received it in, in Medina, from 622 to 632. This part, the second part, would be Meccan; this is the part he received or revealed to him when

he was in Mecca from 610 to 622. So 12 years here, then he moved to this one, and 10 years here. Why does he go backward? Because it goes by size, not by chronology. So that's why it's important that we look at... The Quran was revealed to Muhammad in those two cities. Uh, those two cities are in central western Arabia, known as the Hijaz. So, let's start with the sources. Where did all this information come from? Where did all these stories come from? To do that, we need to look at this map. So, look at

this map. I—my laser isn't working; it's not powerful enough to show on the screens. But, according to Islam, look at the brown area there; that is where Muhammad's Empire was. You can see it on both of the screens. It only included really just the northern part of the Hijaz all the way down to Yemen—not much area—but it did include both Mecca and Medina, the two major cities, the two most important cities. When he died in 632, then Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman, and Ali took over as the next four caliphs, the Four Kings, and they expanded

the borders to the orange area. By the time that Ali died in 661, when he was killed at the Battle of Siffin, Islam was controlled from Tripoli in the west—there you can see—all the way up over by the Mediterranean Sea and all the way over to Afghanistan in the east, from Turkey in the north all the way down to Yemen in the south. That was the area that they controlled, and that's the area I am most concerned with. Because we're moving up into 661 now, really everything should be in place by 661. We should have

the book, the man, the place—everything should be in its categories. Because everything we look at in Islam today follows from those two periods: the period of Muhammad and the period of what they call the rightly guided caliphs—Abu Bakr, Umar, and Ali. So, both the brown and the orange areas— that's a pretty big empire, isn't it? But it didn't stop there. When Muawiya comes to power, he introduces the Umayyad caliphate, which, according to every Muslim, was the first real Islamic caliphate, the first real Islamic kingdom. He's living in Damascus, and he spreads the borders along with

those who come after him. So, during the Umayyad period, the purple area comes into play, and they expanded the borders during the Umayyad period for the next 100 years, up until 750, to include Andalusia, which is Spain today, and to include all the way over almost to the Indus River in India or Pakistan today. So, that's why we need to look at that map. Memorize that map! Can you keep it in your head? So, I'll be looking at the brown area, the orange area, and a little bit of the purple area—that's what we're interested in.

According to the timeline of Islam's emergence, we know that what they tell us is that Muhammad was born in 570. The Quran was revealed in 610. He then goes up to the seven heavens, meets Allah, gets 50 prayers, bounces between Moses and Allah, and gets it down to five prayers. He comes back down to Jerusalem and then falls back on the winged horse called Al-Buraq back down to Mecca. That happens in 621, known as the Isra and Mi'raj. He then moves with 80—some say as many as 200—of his followers from Mecca to Medina in 622,

called the Hijra. He conquers Mecca without firing a shot in 630 and then dies in 632. That's his life. Now, I'm just giving you the bare bones. All right, I don't have time to go through everything, but those are the major categories, the major events in his life. When he dies, suddenly, Abu Bakr has to take over. He lasts for two years; he dies suddenly. Umar then takes over; he lasts for only 12 years—he is killed. Uthman takes over; he lasts for 12 years—he is killed. But while he is living, he is the one that

writes this book, and then this is the recension; he is the one that creates the final Quran, basically 20 years after Muhammad had created it. Sorry, not Muhammad. Muhammad didn't create the Quran; he never wrote it down. It was never written down when he was alive; it was written down by Abu Bakr right after him. So, this book here is the book that all Muslims believe comes from Uthman, 652. We'll get back into that when we get into the Quranic material after the break. And then after he is killed, Ali takes over; he only lasts

for 5 years—he is killed in 661—and that is the end of what we know as the Golden Age of Islam. This is the age that every Muslim wants to get back to. This is known as the Rashidun period; this is the Golden Era. And as you notice, it goes up until 661. So, by this time, everything is formed. We have all the traditions, we have the Hadith. By this time, we have the Sunnah. By this time, everything Muhammad did, everything he said, all the four schools of law—all of this should be inculcated and standardized by

661. Do you agree? Just say yes, just for today. All right, so everything we know about Islam should be finalized by this period. But here's the problem: Was it? Can we say yes to that? How do we know where all these stories come from? I'm just giving you the bare bones. I could go on all day telling you story after story after story that happened between 610 and 661, or 624, when the Islamic State was instituted, to 661—that 40-year period. How do we know? Where does it come from? I would imagine that... You would want

eyewitnesses to have written this down, am I correct? Eyewitnesses would be pretty good, wouldn't they? We demand that of Jesus, don't we? We want an eyewitness account of what Jesus did and what he said, and that's why we have Matthew; that's why we have John. Matthew and John were right there, right? They were eyewitnesses; they wrote what they saw. Mark and Luke got it from the eyewitnesses. If we demand that for Jesus, shouldn't we demand that also for Muhammad? So why aren't we? Because most Muslims would say these are eyewitnesses. Everything that was written about

these events was all done by eyewitnesses. But were they? Here we go; let's see. Now I'm just going to be using Islamic sources from here on out, okay? These are what the Muslims tell us. I'm not going to make up any of this. So what they say is this: Muhammad died in 632. Obviously, we needed a biography about him. He's now dead; in 632, you must write down his life. So hopefully, hopefully, hopefully, we'll get someone who was there in 632 writing it down. No, we don't. This is the guy that wrote it down: Ibn

Ishaq. Do you see him there? What are his dates? 765 is when he died. That's 130 years too late. That's not even the same century! But we don't even have anything from Ibn Ishaq—nothing. We don't have one word, not one letter. We don't have one page of anything he wrote down. We have to go to this guy here: Ibn Hisham. Ibn Hisham died in 833. Are you beginning to see a problem here, folks? 833 is for the first writing of what Muhammad did, the first biography—that's 200 years too late, isn't it? There's another biography: Al-Waqidi,

but he died in 835. We have nothing from Ibn Ishaq. Since we have nothing, let's just get rid of him; goodbye, he doesn't exist because there's nothing there about him. We have to go to these two guys. What about the sayings? Maybe they're a little better because at least the sayings we have for Jesus Christ. Whenever you see Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, whenever Jesus speaks, we write it in red letters, don't we? In some of our Bibles, that's the sayings of Jesus. So certainly, someone should have heard what he was saying. Who are the

first ones to write it down? The first one is this guy here: Al-Bukhari, 870—that's the late 9th century. You have others like Muslim and Al-Sahih, 884; Ma'ahid, 887; Abu Dawood, 899; An-Nasa'i, 915. Everything we know about what Muhammad said comes from 240 years later. Did any of these guys know Muhammad? Did they even live in the same century Muhammad lived? So where did they get their material from? I'll tell you. Muslims will tell you Al-Bukhari was given 600,000 akhbar; that means stories about what Muhammad said. He was to look at the 600,000 and throw away

what he did not like, and only retain what he liked. So from 600,000, he whittled it down to 7,397. 7,397 from 600,000, which means he threw out 98% of it and only retained 2%. What was his criteria? What happened to the other 98%? You'd like to know, wouldn't you? And why did he throw them away? That's why we're asking this question, and you need to ask this question, and you need to hold Muslims accountable. Everything they know about what their Prophet did, everything they know about what their Prophet said, comes from 240 years too late.

But we have two more genres. We also have the tafsir, which are the commentaries on the Quran explaining the Quran because the Quran, you just can't understand. Try to read it and see if you understand it. Even in English, it's hard to understand; 25% of it, even the scholars don't understand. The Muslim scholars have no idea what a quarter of it means, so you need to, right away, you need to have commentaries to explain it. They were first introduced by this guy here: Al-Tabari. The histories of all mankind were first introduced by Al-Tabari. Others come

after it, like Zakariya al-Sufi and Ibn al-Nadim, but he is the first to write it down. They all come post-923, so everything we know about Muhammad is 200 years too late. I'm going to put this guy up here: Abu Malik. We're going to talk about him because he is the one that really introduces Muhammad to us. He is the one that actually introduces the name on the Dome of the Rock, on the coins and on the protocols. Look at his date; he does that in 692. That's 60 years after Muhammad supposedly died. Do you see

a problem there? If that's the first time we hear this name for 60 years, boy, that's a little troubling. Can you imagine not hearing anything about Jesus Christ for the first century? If he died in 33 AD, we wouldn't have heard anything until the beginning of the second century about his name. How would we defend him? That's exactly what they're dealing with. But the people that really created the Muhammad we're looking at today, the Muhammad of Islam, the Muhammad of Mecca, that Muhammad, were these people: the Abbasids, and they start doing that in 750. That's

the mid-8th century. So what does that mean? Muhammad was revealed 84 years after the Abbasids created him, 141 years after he was first introduced, yet 1,011 years after he supposedly lived. These are all too late, folks! We can't accept them; nobody should be able to accept them. Yet Muslims are not being held accountable for this, these dates. Now can you understand why those young men were getting up and smashing the door? As they left, they had never heard this before, and these were academics; they never knew this material. Where did these guys live who were

putting all this together? Let's look at this map. The Islamic traditions say everything happened in those two cities, Mecca and Medina, where the two green circles are. Yet we know that all of the traditions were written in Bukhara, which is 1,200 miles to the north. More than that, Ibn Ishaq, who wrote the Sira, the biography, was born in Basra, grew up in Cairo, and wrote in Baghdad. Cairo is 990 miles away, and Basra is 1,200 miles away. Al-Bukhari, who was the first to write the Hadith down, comes from Bukhara, which is in Uzbekistan; that's 2,600

miles away. Al-Nasa'i, who is the one that introduces the last two genres, was born and grew up in Tabaristan, Northern Iran. Today, that's 1,700 miles away. None of the traditional writers lived or worked in Mecca or Medina; they were too far to the north of Mecca and came from the west and east of Baghdad. All of them, all of these northern areas, are where the Abbasids originate. These are Abbasid writers, and what they wrote is what the Abbasids wanted. This is the Abbasid narrative. So everything we're dependent on comes from people who introduced this man,

introduced what he did, and introduced what he said after 750. That's a whole hundred years after Muhammad was supposed to have lived. Does that bother any of you? Please say yes; it should bother every one of us. And that's why, as historians, we've got to ask these historical questions. Now, you might say we have the same problem. No, we don't. We have the same genre; we have the Hadith and the Gospels of Jesus. The Gospels would be Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, what they wrote about Jesus. We have the Hadith, as I said earlier, which

records what Jesus said in the red letters. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, we have the teachings of Jesus, which would be Paul's letters. Whenever Paul took what Jesus said, he applied it. He applied it to Ephesus, he applied it to Philippi, he applied it to Colossae, and Corinth, and also to Rome, did he not? That's called teaching; that's called the commentaries, the application of the Gospel of Jesus Christ in every one of those cities. And we also have the Acts, which would be the histories, the Book of Acts, the history of the early church. So

the four same genres that Islam has, we have as well. So let's ask the same question: When were these Gospels and these writings about Jesus written down? I'm going to give you the dates, but I'm going to step on your toes; you're not going to like my dates. Please don't get angry with me; every time I say this, someone gets up and gets angry with me. So please keep calm. I'm going to put the most liberal dates I can find just to make a point. All right, so let's start with the Acts, which would be

the history of the early church, the Book of Acts, written by Luke between 52 and 60 AD. That's 20 to 30 years after Christ's death. That's pretty early, isn't it? Yes. How about Paul's letters to Corinth, Philippi, Ephesus, and to Rome, written between 48 and 65 AD? Thus, within 15 to 34 years of Christ's death. That's very early, isn't it? Then we get to the first of what we know as the Hadith and the Sira written by Mark in 70 AD. That's 37 years after Christ's death. Then you get the other two Gospels and Hadith,

written by Matthew and Luke. That's 80 AD, within 47 years of Christ's death. The last one would be the Gospel of John, written about 90 AD, that's 57 years after Christ's death. What that means is that everything we know about Jesus and all of those four genres about Jesus were written within 29 to 57 years. They were all written within 60 years of Christ's death. You see how great? We have more than that. All of the New Testament writers lived in the same place Jesus lived. They did not live hundreds of miles north; they were

there where he lived. They saw him, they heard him, and they either knew him personally, like Matthew and John, or they got the material from others who saw what he did and heard what he said. As a comparison, just doing the comparison, when we look at these biographies and these sayings, Christianity has everything in place about who Jesus was, what he did, what he said, and where he went within 60 years. Islam knows nothing about Muhammad; it doesn't begin to hear about Muhammad but for two to 300 years after his death. Which is the more

authoritative comparison? Like with like, hands down, we're more authoritative, and those are the most liberal dates I could find. In fact, as a comparison, if we had to depend on sources for Jesus, what he said, did, and where he went, comparable to what Muslims have for their Muhammad, what he said, did, and where he went, Jesus would not begin to appear until the 3rd century. We could not defend him, and no one would allow us to defend him if he was written so late, redacted back. This is called redaction, written in the third century and

redacted back to the first century. Yet that's exactly everything we know about Muhammad; they are all redactions. Do you see how powerful this is? No wonder the Muslims had to get up and walk out of the class. I'm going to go even one step further. I'm going to put a whole wrench into all this. I just told you that Ibn Ishaq was the one that... Wrote Muhammad's biography? Didn't I just say yes? I did tell you that, and I did say that he died in 833, which is 200 years too late, right? That's bad enough,

right? I lied. I'm sorry, forgive me, but I actually lied because he didn't write a thing down; we don't have anything written by Ibn Ishaq—not one word. He's as bad as Ibn Ishaq. So where in the world do we get this book? This is the book you have to read; this is the book everybody has to read if you're in a university, a seminary, or any bookshop. If you want to know the life of Muhammad, you have to go to "The Life of Muhammad," the translation of Ibn Ishaq. Even they put Ibn Ishaq's name there,

written by Alfred Guillaume. That's the standard work that everybody uses. So where did Alfred Guillaume get this book from? I am not at all sure. He didn't go to Ibn Ishaq; he went to this gentleman right here, an elderly gent, Heinrich Ferdinand Wustenfeld, who was born in 1808 and died in 1899. Between 1858 and 1860, that two-year period, he went to four different German cities, went into the libraries of those cities, and grabbed whatever he could find in Arabic because he's an Arabist, trying to find anything he could find about this guy named Muhammad. He

put it together in that two-year period and published it in 1860 as "The Life of Muhammad," attributing it back to Ibn Ishaq when Ibn Ishaq didn't write one of those pieces, folks. The biography of Muhammad that we all use today is only 160 years old, written in the late 1800s. Have you heard this before? Okay, can you see how this just destroys the legitimacy? The man who Muslims are dependent on to know who their Prophet is or what he did is an elderly German linguist who wrote Muhammad's story 160 years ago—thus, over a thousand years

too late. Thank God we don't have this problem with Jesus Christ, amen. But can you see why we need to get this into the open? Muslims have to know this because this is just going to shut down everything they've been saying and doing. What do you think ISIS does when they go or Al-Baharam or Al-Shabab? They follow Muhammad's example because they read his example in this book. In this book, you will see him going into Medina and demanding that everybody obey him, though he's not from Medina, and the Jews refuse to do so. So he

attacks the Banu Qurayza family in this book and throws them out in 624, and then he attacks the Banu Nadir family in 625 and throws them out. Then in 627, according to this book, he then attacks the last remaining Jewish tribe, the Banu Qaynuqa family, takes all 800 men, and slits their throats in one afternoon—800 men. He took the women as concubines and their children as slaves. By five years after moving to Medina, though he was from Mecca, he had pretty much eradicated all the Jews out of Medina. That's called genocide, and it's from that

book, folks. And that book has nothing to do with Muhammad; it has to do with Heinrich Ferdinand Wustenfeld, a German scholar. Now don't blame him; he was just going and grabbing words and pieces and stories about this Muhammad from the Ottoman period. These are all Ottoman writings, who came to power in 1299 and for 700 years, up until 1924, controlled all of Islam. This is their story of Muhammad, but not in one form. He was the first to make it into one form. Can you see then why we've got to confront this Muhammad? We've got

to confront this paradigm. This is the paradigm, the model for all Muslims all over the world in all times and for all peoples. So, 12th-century scholars' conclusions concerning these late dates: Islam, as we know it, did not exist, they say, in the 7th century but more than likely evolved over a period of 200 to 300 years. The Quran probably was not revealed to one man in 22 years but likely evolved over a period of 50 to 100 years. Therefore, the conclusion is that the history of Islam, at least from the time of the caliphate, means

from 685 to 705, we're talking about the late 7th century going into the 8th century, is a later fabrication. That's their conclusion, not mine. And look, these are the best scholars in the world today. They've come to that conclusion because of what we're going to find. So these are their concerns: If so much of the history of Islam was so late, two to 300 years later, why did it take so long to write it down? Muslims, when I ask this question, say, "Well, because they were all illiterate?" Really? Look at the land that they controlled,

all the way from Tripoli in the west all the way to Afghanistan in the east. You have cities like Basra, Baghdad, Damascus, Jerusalem, and Cairo. Are you telling me nobody can read and write in those cities? Wasn't there an entire library in Alexandria that was burned to the ground in the 5th century? If you have a library, you have books, right? So certainly, you could read and write. And when Muslims tell me that the Quran was finally written down in 652 by the secretary of Muhammad, what do secretaries do? They write, am I correct? And

he wrote the Quran down first in 632. That wasn't good enough, so they had to rewrite it in 652. He wrote it down, and that was sent to five cities. So you can't tell me they couldn't read and write your own traditions. Tell you that the Quran was written down so you can shut that one down really quickly. It's not because of illiteracy, folks. So where did these 9th and 10th Century writers like Ibn Isam, Ali Sah, Muhammad al-Bari, al- where did they get their material from? In the 9th and 10th Century, they got it

from the isnad. Have any of you know what this word means? I'm teaching you some Arabic, but just forget it after today because you don't have to worry about it. Isnads are a chain of names; so in every akhbar, in every story about Muhammad, there is a chain of this person got it from this person who got it from this person who got it from this person who got it from the companion of the Prophet himself—a chain of names. It's not... and every time the story is called a matn, so a matn is what they

got. It was sent down over 200 to 300 years of lists of names. We call that oral tradition, right? So if we were in a, uh... you've done this in maybe a birthday party. If you decide to tell her something, she tells him, he tells him, he tells him, he tells him—by the time I get her to him, what you said and what he says is a completely different thing, right? You ever played that game Chinese Whispers? Sorry, Chinese Telephone, right? It's a great game. If in 15 minutes what I tell her and he tells

me are two different things, what happens over 200 years of oral tradition? It gets embellished, does it not? It gets changed, manipulated. And what's more, these lists of names were only introduced—were only created in the 9th century to redact it back. Not one of those names that were on that list wrote one thing down; it's all basically made up. That's the problem with oral tradition. You should not have had to need oral tradition because these people could read and write. So why did they not write it down? Well, because they didn't write it down, and

we're in a dilemma. We have a whole 200 years of silence. We've decided to go back to the 7th Century to look and see what we could find. Now, I did this debate with Dr. J. Badawi in 1995—1995, 28 years ago. I did my first debate with the world's leading authority on the Quran at Cambridge University on this very issue. And before I went up to do that debate, I went to see Dr. Patricia Crone, who is the leading authority in the world on the early origins of Islam. She reads and writes 15 languages, all

archaic languages—amazing woman; only stands about this high—this high, maybe that high. She was a tigress, and she had written a book called "Hagarism" and then another book in 1987 called "Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam." She got death threats at Oxford University; as head of department, she had to leave Oxford University—this is in England, of all places—and had to move to Cambridge for protection. Isn't that something? In England, of all places. So I went to see her the week before the debate, and I wanted to get all this material from her. And so we

sat down for three hours, and we went through all the stuff I had written down. She says, "Throw that away; no, this is a better way; here, why don't you use this?" "Oh, I've got this you can use." After about three hours, I turned towards her and I said, "Dr. Crone, why aren't you doing this debate? This is your material; you're the world's leading authority on this." And she laughed at me, and she turned to me and she said, "Jay, I have a chair to protect. I have an institution to represent—Cambridge University. I cannot do

this debate. Even if I'm tenured, I cannot do this, but you can." She said the same thing that Dr. Peter Adell said to me, almost like she had heard him. She said, "You are not an academic. You have no chair to protect. You don't belong to any institution except your church, and therefore you are only represented to Jesus Christ." This is an atheist telling me who I'm represented to. And I looked at her and I said, "Of course! We're the only ones that can do this. We have the freedom to do these kinds of debates;

she doesn't. But she does the research because I don't know 15 languages. Do you know 15 languages? Arabic? Syriac? Aramaic? These are languages that nobody uses today, but she knows them; that's why she's so powerful. So she does the research, and we are her mouthpiece—that's what we had to do. So I went down and did that debate, a two-hour debate. Dr. J. Badawi had not heard any of this. I only gave 10 challenges—many a lot fewer than what I'm giving today. After the end of the debate, after not being able to tackle any one of

them, he just kind of laughed at me. He says, "You know, Jay, everything you're talking about is based on silence. You have nothing except silence, and the absence of evidence does not prove the evidence of absence," which is exactly true. He had me; I couldn't go any further. I had nothing to throw at him. I had nothing because it was all silence. My only argument is, why is there silence? It should be screaming to be heard: 200 years of silence. Why? He says, "We'll find it; just give it time." I says, "We've been waiting 1,400

years; we still haven't found it." See, that was 1995. Now we're in 2023; we now have found the evidence. And what I'm going to share... With you today is exactly that evidence. We no longer are arguing from silence, so let's go back to the seventh century. Let's go back to where the evidence is. Let's stop wasting our time on the ninth and tenth centuries, which are redacted back to the seventh century. Let's go back to when it took place. Let's go back to where this man lived. Let's go back to where this Quran was revealed.

Let's go back to where this city existed. And to do that, don't waste my time with the ninth and tenth centuries; just go to the seventh century and let's start with Mecca. Why Mecca of all things? There's a number of reasons why we have to start with Mecca. It's absolutely important because it still exists today, and therefore we can still research it. Because it's now, it's still there. Muhammad's no longer here, so we can't research him. We can't ask him; we can't look for him. The Quran does exist, but we don't have any of the

earliest manuscripts, so we can't really do that. But we can look at Mecca. What's more, remember at the very beginning I said that this is based on three real legs that hold up the stool: the book, the man, and the place—the Quran, Muhammad, and Mecca. If you start to attack one of the legs and it starts to wobble, the other two start to wobble. If you destroy that one leg, the others begin to fall. What do I mean by that? If we can confront and destroy Mecca as a viable place in the seventh century, then

it doesn't matter who or what Muhammad you find, and you will find many Muhammads. It doesn't matter what Quran you find, and you will find many books that claim to be the Quran. If they're not from Mecca, they're not Islamic. Are you following me? My remit today is really only one thing: destroy Mecca, and the other two come cascading down. Now I'm going to go way beyond that, but you see how easy this is. It's as if I were to say in order to confront Jesus in the New Testament, all I need to do is

destroy Jerusalem. If there was no Jerusalem, there is no crucifixion. If there's no crucifixion, it doesn't matter what Jesus you find in the first century. It doesn't matter what gospels you come across; it's not the Jesus of Christianity, and he did not die on the cross. And if he did not die on the cross, there's nothing for us to do; we might as well go home. Do you see how damaging it is? Taking out the place first means the other two come cascading down. So let's confront Mecca. Let's start with Mecca and begin by looking

at what the Muslims claim to begin with. So this is what they claim: first and foremost, it's the oldest city. How do I know that? Because Adam and Eve were sent there. Well, no, at least Eve was sent there. In chapter 7 of the Quran, you have the Garden of Eden, and it's up in space; it's not on Earth. Isn't that interesting? Ours is on Earth, isn't it? Theirs is in space. What's interesting is when you look at that Garden of Eden—it’s in chapters 2, 7, and 20 of the Quran—you see that everything that happens

in our Garden of Eden happens in their Garden of Eden, except for two things: their Garden of Eden is not on Earth; it's up in space. That's pretty important because that means their God does not enter time and space to come and walk and talk in the cool of the day as we see in Genesis 3. God enters time and space, walking in the garden and calling out to Adam and Eve. That means he had to have a pair of legs; he better have a mouth and a pair of lungs in order to call out,

"Where are you?" Right? And he's also face-to-face with Adam and Eve, am I correct? So in our garden, God enters our direction, speaks our language, and takes on human form. He can do that; if he can do it at the very beginning, he can do it all the way through. We call them theophanies. In the Islamic garden, it's up in space; Allah is not even up there. He never is face-to-face with Adam and Eve. Already, you're seeing a problem. If he's not there, then there's no relationship; there never was. Therefore, what has sin done? In

our case, we know exactly what sin has done. One sin destroys that relationship; we have to be thrown out of God's presence because God is so holy (Habakkuk 1:13). He is so holy he cannot have even one sin in his presence. That's why Adam and Eve had to be thrown out. Then why were they thrown out of the Garden of Eden? Because they sinned. But they were forgiven of their sin. If they were forgiven of their sin, why didn't they remain there? More than that, why aren't all of us up in the Garden of Eden,

up in space? The fact that we're all here, according to Islam, means we're all imputed with Adam and Eve's sin. Ooh, I love that! But let's get back to this story. If this is the case, Adam and Eve are sent down to Earth; they're thrown down to Earth. Now, whoever threw them down was a pretty lousy shot because Eve was sent down to Mecca, but Adam was thrown way down to Sri Lanka. He was 90 ft tall, I kid you not; that's what the tradition says. And he just went, "Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom,"

and came and met Eve. Then I guess he reduced himself down to her size. But therefore, obviously from the very beginning, Adam and Eve are there in Mecca, right? If Adam and Eve are in Mecca, does that not make that the earliest inhabitant for mankind? For in fact, for eternity, because you don't get anybody earlier than Adam and Eve. And if you don't get anybody earlier than Adam and Eve, you don't have an inhabitant that's earlier than them. So the first habitation for mankind is Mecca. It's the earliest one that you get from Chapter 2,

Chapter 7, and Chapter 20. Also, when you get to Chapter 21 of the Quran, you will see that Abraham is down in Mecca. I had no idea Abraham was down that far south. Did you know Abraham went to Mecca? No, never heard that before, have you? That's kind of odd, isn't it? See, he's way up north, isn't he? He's over way over in Ur, which is in Iraq today. He goes up to Haran, then he goes down to what is today Israel. What's he doing a thousand miles further south? Nonetheless, there in Chapter 21, he

goes into the Mal, Mal means the forbidden place of bowing that is referred to as the Kaaba today. And he takes a large idol and he smashes all the smaller idols. The next morning, when they see the smashed idols, the people then come and confront him, and he says, "Talk to the large idol; don't talk to me," and they throw him into a fiery pit. Did Abraham get thrown into a fiery pit, or was that Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego? So there's obviously a confusion here in the story. Chapter 21 of the Quran is full of

these confused stories, and we know why, because we know where that story comes from. It doesn't come from the Bible, thank God; it comes from the Mishnah of Raa, written in the second century, a Jewish apocryphal account written as a bedtime story for children. But it makes it there into Chapter 21:51 to 71. But nonetheless, for our purpose today, that means that if Abraham is there in the Masjid al-Haram, if he's there in Mecca in 1900 BC, Mecca should be well known. See, he's there. You following me? What's more, when you look at the traditions,

you will see that Mecca is the center of trade, north, south, east, and west. So it's a very important city—the oldest city, the city where Abraham lived, and the center of trade. So it should be one of the best-known and best-documented places in history. When we look at the Quran itself, there's a real confusion about Mecca. One, the first confusion is it's only referred to once in Chapter 48:24. That's the only place you will find the word Mecca in the entire Quran. Now it does refer to the settlement of the Prophet, the Masjid al-Haram, and

so Muslims today infer that that must be Mecca, but they're putting that in there; they're imposing that in there. That's why they always have to put it in parentheses in the English translation. See, it's not there in the Arabic. If this is the oldest city, then why is it that it doesn't talk about it more often? And when it does talk about it in Chapter 48:24, it doesn't say much at all. It doesn't say much at all. What we do know is that the first sanctuary is in Becca. Muslims like to say, "Ah, that must

be Mecca," but no, if you know Arabic, you have three root letters for every Arabic word. This is BKK, then the Mecca is M—a completely different letter. So you can't confuse the two. There in Chapter 6 and in Chapter 41, it says that this Mishkali is the mother of all settlements. It's where Adam and Eve went to in Chapter 7. Abraham lived there in Chapter 21. Muhammad was born according to the traditions in 622 and lived there, and moved from there in 622. And then it's where all the Qiblahs, every mosque, was then redirected to

according to Chapter 2:149—from the farthest mosque, which Muslims believe was Jerusalem, down to the Masjid al-Haram, which they claim is Mecca. So certainly, according to the Quran, by 624, it should be the center of the whole world. Now, when you get to the traditions, which come in the 9th and 10th centuries, as I mentioned, there are lots of references to Mecca because it's well known. By the 9th century, it was created probably at the beginning of the 8th century. But look what it says about it—that it's in a valley with a parallel valley, that has

streams, that has ruins, and a pillar of salt, that has fields, that has trees, grass, fruit, clay, and it has olive trees. Folks, does that sound like the Mecca you know of today? What's wrong with all that? That's lots of vegetation. There's no vegetation whatsoever in Mecca—not today, not ever. Look at the oldest pictures; look at the oldest descriptions of Mecca. There is no vegetation whatsoever for one very good reason: there's just no water there. Now, you might say the Zamzam well is there. All right, we're going to deal with that. Hold on. So Mecca

is not in a valley, has none of these listed above because it's in a desert, so it's just too arid and dry to support any of the above. When we look... At the geographical locations Dan Gibson did this, and there are 65 geographical references in the Quran. But look at what they said: only nine places are named by name. Most of the time, the geographical locations are referring to people who live in a certain place, and they refer 23 times to these people from 'Ud'. This prophet has a relationship with these people from 'Ud' on

a daily basis, 23 times. He also has a relationship with these people from Thud, which would be the 'Thamud', and would be the people of 'Uz' in the Bible. And seven times, these people are referred to as Midianites. Well, take a look at the map. Where is 'Ud' in Midian? I'm sorry; my thing doesn't work, but if you look down here, look where Mecca is at the bottom. I'm not getting much of a light here on this, but you can see Mecca is at the very bottom. You can see it over there—Mecca is at the

very bottom—and 'Ud' in Midian are 600 miles to the north. How does he have daily contact with these people from those three tribes going 600 miles up and 600 miles back down? That's 1,200 miles a day on a camel. No, you'd have to have a jet or a helicopter, and I don't believe they existed in the 7th century. So you can see whoever wrote the Quran down was living up there, where those people lived; that would make sense, suggesting, therefore, that everything was happening in the north. Hold on to that; I'm going to say that

a lot today: the north, the north, the north. When we look at the prophets in the traditions, many of the prophets die, and when you die, you are buried within 24 hours. Look at the names of the prophets that you know that have died in Mecca, right there where the Kaaba is: Adam and Eve, Seth, Ishmael, Noah, Hud, the great-grandson of Noah, Saleh, the grandfather of Hagar, the Queen of Sheba, Daniel—up to 300 prophets are listed as dying in Mecca. If that were the case, what happens when they die? If you look at the traditions,

they die in a kneeling position so that they can pray while they're dead, because their bodies never deteriorate. If their bodies never deteriorate, according to the traditions, that means their bodies should be there today, am I correct? So look at the buildings that are being built all over Mecca. You see that big clock tower? That's the fourth highest building in the world right now. When you build high buildings like that, and they're building 62 skyscrapers around it, you have to dig in the ground for foundation, am I correct? And when you dig a foundation, what

happens? The archaeologists show up. You go to London, you go to any of the old cities in Greece or Turkey, and whenever they dig down, the archaeologists show up because, as you dig down for the foundations, you come across artifacts, which the archaeologists want. They grab them, and they look at them, and they recreate the history of the city by looking at the depths of those artifacts, and that's how you work. And that's why the archaeologists have showed up. But guess what? They found not a thing. Now, Dr. Gibson was at a conference in Dubai

a number of years ago, and he wanted to find out a little bit more about these diggings because, you know, as an archaeologist himself, he wanted to find out what they had found. So he sat at the table with the Saudi Arabian archaeologists, and he asked them, "With all these great diggings going on and with all these foundations going on, you must be coming across lots of pottery shards and jewels and rocks and all kinds of things to recreate the history of the city. What have you found? What's the oldest object you have found?" And

they looked down at their toes and said, "We haven't really found anything prior to the 8th century, and the best thing we have found is the ruins of an Ottoman fort, which is from 1300 A.D.—nothing earlier." Well, what about all these prophets? Where are they? Can you see a problem here, folks? Don't make a claim unless you can support it. If the above were true, this would mean that almost all of the Bible would have to be rewritten, and all the stories redirected—not up in Palestine and in Israel, but down to the mid-central part of

Arabia. Yet there is so much evidence for the biblical narrative historically, yet almost nothing for Islam's. So when was this city first discovered? When's the first documentation? Well, Dr. Patricia Korer wanted to know this. Now remember, she reads and writes 15 languages. So she went back to all the documentation she could find in all 15 languages and looked for the earliest documented case, and this is what she came up with: The Apocalypse of Sur Methodius, "Continue to Bant 'Araba," written in 741. Folks, that's in the mid-8th century—nothing earlier than 741. She couldn't find any reference

to the city earlier than that. That's over 100 years after Muhammad, during the early reign of Caliph Hisham. The earliest map does not show anything on it until 900 A.D. We don't have anything on any map until the 10th century. What are the maps? Let's look at the maps. Ptolemy is the best one to record the geography because he wrote the geography of Arabia in the 2nd century, and when he wrote this down, he would put the rivers, and he would describe the mountains, and he would describe the towns and the cities. But he never

drew any map; they didn't draw any map then, and he would not have known how to draw it anyway. But because of his geography, others have decided later on to create maps, like Leonart Hol in 1482. They tried to draw this map of Arabia just following what Ptolemy said in the second century. He's putting this into the 15th century. Notice what's missing: Mecca is missing. When you look at this map, this one is done in the 16th century by a fellow named Lauron Freeze, and what's missing again? Mecca is missing. Here's a third one; this

was created by Sebastian Münster out of Germany in 1571, again using all that he could find from Ptolemy's description. Mecca's missing again; it should be the foremost city there because it's the most important, is it not? Here is a redacted map that's just redacting it back to the 7th century from modern day, and Mecca's missing on that redacted map. Here's another redacted map going back to the 7th century, what people today think Mecca must have looked like in the 7th century, but Mecca is not there. Why? Because no one had heard of it that early;

it just didn't exist. Therefore, you can't put it on any map, not in the 7th century. Dan Gibson, who's a friend of mine, back in 1989 was living in Jordan and was doing a book on Petra. While he was doing this and walking around, he learned the languages from the Bedouins. He came across a mosque there from the 7th century and he found the qibla wall. Now, to find the qibla wall in a mosque, you just find the longest wall because that's the wall that you pray towards, the qibla. He noticed that the qibla there

was not facing Mecca, and that was curious. So, he decided to do a whole research and he physically went to over a hundred mosques to find out where these qiblas were. Now, many of these mosques are in ruins, but you can still see the foundational wall, and you can still see the direction that they faced. He had studied Dr. David King, who is considered to be the world authority on the qibla from the University of London, and he looked at his studies. He noticed that his studies said that there were hundreds of different directions for

these qiblas. The reason why there were hundreds of directions is that the people in the 7th and 8th centuries just didn't know their mathematics, so they didn't know well how to find qibla. Dan Gibson decided to use GPS and try to find where the qibla walls were facing. Guess what he found? By using modern technology with an accuracy of 1 to 2 degrees, he found that every one of the qiblas in the 7th century, up until 706, were facing the city of Petra in Jordan. The Medina mosques, as far away as China and Guangzhou, the

Indian mosques, the Syrian mosques in Egypt, in Israel, in Jordan, in Yemen—every mosque he looked at was all within 2 degrees facing Petra; not one of them was facing Mecca. Now we're up to 706. Remember, Muhammad died in 632, right? The mosque was canonized in 624, so we're up to 706; we're talking about 80 years later and not one mosque is facing Mecca. So, when was the first mosque that was facing Mecca? It's right up there on the screen: 715. That's the 8th century, folks. That's almost 100 years too late; that's 90 years too late.

Dr. Patricia Crone, who was the one that helped me with my debate, also became my second supervisor when I started my doctorate. She said this: "What commodity was available in Arabia that could be transported such a distance through such an inhospitable environment and still be sold at a profit large enough to support the growth of a city in a peripheral site bereft of natural resources?" The trade at that time was heavily dependent on the transport of incense from southern Arabia to the Roman province of Syria and beyond. Due to Christianity's growth from the 4th century,

paganism—which required large amounts of incense—collapsed, and with it, so did the trade in incense. According to Crone, the only trade that went by land consisted essentially of low-value commodities such as dates, leather, and salt. She said, "You do not build a large empire and become the center of trade north, south, east, and west simply by dealing or trading in dates, leather, and salt." That's why she wrote "Mecca and Trade in the Rise of Islam" in 1987. She went back and looked at all the 15 products that supposedly went through Mecca and she couldn't find any

of them going through a place called Mecca. They didn't even go up the Arabian Sea. The only two commodities that she could find that were even used or traded were down in the south in what they call the Hadramaut area of Yemen and Oman, and they were nothing more than gold and myrrh. That's it. So, this man here, William Montgomery Watt, in the last century, decided to help the Muslims out and he tried to show, "Well, okay, so there's no trade there; how is it that Mecca became important?" Going through how it became the center

of trade, he introduced what we now know today as the trade route theory. How many people have heard of this trade route theory? A few of you have, right? This is what I was taught; this is what everybody's taught. If you go to university, this is the theory that shows how Mecca became important, how it was able to become such a dominant city. The theory is that all the trade would come from China and India, way off there to the east, but it could not go north because of the Himalaya Mountains. See the Himalaya Mountains

there? I wish I had my pointer here, but the Himalaya Mountains and the Hindu Kush meant that it had to come to the western coast of India, which is where the Arabian Sea is. They had to put it on a ship there, and it went up across the Arabian Sea—follow the arrow—over through the Persian Gulf, up to the Straits of Hormuz, and then was de-shipped there in Basra. Then, from Basra, it wasn't called that at that time; I'm using the modern-day name—it went then across Iraq, across Syria, over to the Mediterranean, and that got it

to the Mediterranean world. That is where all the trade used to go up until the fifth century. In the fifth century, the Sassanids, who were the Persians living in what is today Iran and Iraq, started warring and having battles against the Byzantines, who were Christians. Now, the Sassanids were Zoroastrian; they were Persian. The Byzantines were Christians, and they had this war for 200 years—back and forth, back and forth—which shut down that trade. It could no longer go through the Straits of Hormuz; it could no longer go across Iraq and Syria. So, they had to redirect

the trade. According to Montgomery Watt, they had to go this way: down through the Arabian Sea to Aden, then right up to Gaza, 1,250 miles. You see where Mecca is? It's right there, halfway there, halfway up. So, Mecca controlled that trade. That now solves the problem, and of course, everybody applauded, and this is what we were taught. That's what I was taught. If you take any course on Islam and the history of Islam, you're taught that trade route theory. Do you all agree with that? Is that a pretty good theory? Is there any problems with

that? Well, my 10-year-old son found out two problems, and so did Patricia Kuruna. Let’s see if you’re as smart as my 10-year-old son. I’m not going to ask all of you to do it because then we'll have 10 different answers, but this is what she found. She said the first problem is this: If you're bringing it across the Arabian Sea down to Aden, and then you go up the western plateau on land, you’d have to go up there to Thif, and then from Thif, you have to go down to Mecca, which is 3,000 feet down.

Then from Mecca, you then have to go back up to Yri, which is the archaic name for what is today Medina, and go up through Tabuk, Kar, and then on up to Gaza in the north. Do you see a detour there? Can you see it on the map? That's a detour that no one had taken into account. Why is that significant? Let’s show you. Here is a topographic map looking at Arabia. Look at the topography. I'm going to show you the trade route, and this is the trade route that everybody knows about. It starts at

Aden, goes to S, goes to Najran, continues up to T, on up to Y, and up to Tabuk, and then on up to Petra and Gaza. Notice it's all along the western plateau. Can you see the plateau there? So where's Mecca? Bingo! 3,000 feet below. To make my point, let me just show it on a line graph. So here’s a line graph: okay, there’s Aden, there’s Nan, there’s Y up there, there's Tabuk, and up there is Petra. Where is Mecca? Way down off the plateau, 3,000 feet down. She said, "Why would you take it from

Thif, go down 3,000 feet to a city that had no water?" If you don't have any water, you have no food. Therefore, how are you going to feed your camels? Why would you go down there when there's nothing for any camels, and then bring them back up to Yeth again when they're famished and thirsty? That makes no sense. But then she said, "Here's another problem." When you look at the map again—that's the 7th-century map—notice why would you even put them on land to begin with? Why take off all the goods at Aden and go 1,250

miles by land when you have a water route? Do you see the water there, the Red Sea? Even today, we send all our goods by ship. Why? Because it’s the cheapest way to go. If you take a ton of goods by land 50 miles, it would cost the same amount as 1,250 miles by sea. Why? Because by land you've got to feed the camels, you've got to water the camels, you've got to protect the camels, you’ve got to protect your goods. Anybody could be hiding behind a rock or a sand dune or a hill; they

could attack you at any time, they could surprise you. You would spend all your time on security, security, security. Why in the world would you do that? It would be prohibitively expensive. Just take them by sea. Boat, you're already on the boat. Why on the L on the water? You don't have to have any food or water—no camels! Get rid of the camels. You just have a cell that pushes you. It's perfectly free; you can see anybody coming toward you miles away, and you can prepare yourself. That's why everything is done by sea; even today,

it's all done by sea. So, she decided to go back to trade documents. Now, see, this is why she's so dangerous: she reads and writes all the documents. So, she decided to do what everybody—what Montgomery Walk should have done and what anybody who's a historian should have done—go back to the trading documents and read them. 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, all the way up to the 8th century. And this is what she found: all the documents came across the Arabian Sea. Yeah, they did come across, and they probably did stop at Aden because they

would take off ship their goods there and take on provisions, but they never took off their trade there. They continued on into the Red Sea, and they all stopped in Agilus. Agilus is the city that controlled the trade. They're rans; they're Ethiopians. And then from Agilus, zip right up the Red Sea, on up to Petra, and then from Petra to Gaza, and then from Gaza right across the Mediterranean world. All the documents said that, proving it was all Maritime. But she didn't go far enough. She didn't go far enough. Now she's died in 2015, so

I can't tell her where she what she did wrong. If you're going up the Red Sea, what side of the Red Sea would you go up? See, Muslims say yes, okay. So you went up the Red Sea; you go to Jeddah. And Jeddah is where you would translate, take all the goods off. Jeddah is the town today that gives all the goods to Mecca, which is above it—it's about 30 miles inland. So, therefore, they give all the water and they give all the food. She should have answered that question. So we decided to do that

for her. We decided to go back to the Red Sea and look and see what we now find. And this is what we have found: when you look at the Red Sea, you need to look at it from space, looking down on a topographical map. Do you see the big channel there? The dark channel in the Red Sea? If you don't, I'll put the red line. There's the red line—that's the deep channel; that's where the ships today go—big ships. They need a deep channel, but back in the 7th century, they didn't have big ships like

that; they used small boats with sails. So where did they go? Did they go on the eastern side or the western side? Look where the channels are. The channels are there where the golden arrows are. Notice they're hugging the coast of the African Coast; that's where the smaller ships would go, unlike the Eastern Arabian Shore, which was arid with no fresh water and thus few people. The western African Shore had plenty of fresh water and had larger populations. What's more, the West Coast had easily accessible ports. We know their names; they're there. You can go

up on Wikipedia—I didn't have to do much research; just look on Wikipedia and see where these ports are. There are five coastal cities: Assab—look at the date that we can find in historical records all the way back to 246; Agilus—79 AD; both of them are in what is today Eritrea. Soakin—see, up there, 170 AD—that is in today's Sudan. And then there are two in Egypt: Berenice, 275 BC, and Safaga, 282. Notice what do you notice about them? Their dates all predate Islam! All five are a day’s distance apart, so you can go into port each

night for safety and also get your provisions. On the Red Sea side, the eastern coast, the Arabian coast, only Yanu is known as historical. We have record for Yanu to support YRI; that is well known. What about Jeddah? Jeddah is what we're looking for. We need to know about Jeddah because that's the city, even today, that supplies all the goods for Mecca. Jeddah is a port city, and it supplies for Mecca today. But how old is it? You need to go back to Gerald Hing's book on it, and he states clearly that the earliest they

can find for any reference to Jeddah is not till the 8th century. That means it was created after Mecca was chosen as a means to support Mecca. It is too late; it cannot, therefore, answer this question for us. Therefore, since Jeddah and Mecca were not there in the 7th century, they don't get introduced or created until the 8th century. Let’s just get mid of them up; they go off the screen. So without Mecca, what then happens to 7th century Islam? This puts a big red X if you just look at the historical documentation. Now, folks,

what about the lesser-known towns? If Mecca was not referred to, maybe it's because no one cared about that part of the world. Maybe no one knew anything about that part of the world because it's a desert. You don't learn; you don't take; and you don't care about desert places. Let's ask that question. So let’s go back to a map again. Now, most folks, I'm using Google Maps; I'm using modern-day maps, so forgive me, because these are so you can know where we're talking about. There's Mecca, right? What other cities are known? Well, we know quite

a bit about Nerone, which is just 400 miles south. Strabo refers to it; plenty of the Elders refer to it. It, uh, we know the Pomy ref refers to it in his geographies. Aritus the Martyr was also referring to it. What about cities like Sanaa, Thif, Yth, and Kar that all are on the Western Plateau, that are all right next to it? We have lots of references to these cities in Greek trading documents. Mamra Clinton's history, K has written a history on Mamra. Petra Jakowski has written an entire historical record of Petra, one of the

best documented cities in history. Mah Muhammad also writes a history of M. Why are all these insignificant towns referred to? Everybody knows about them; we know them historically. We even know where they are on a map, but nothing at all about Mecca—not one word! Well, Patricia Cron wanted to find this out, and so she decided to go and find out and ask this question of all the surrounding empires because she could read and write their languages. So there's the map again: If Mecca was the oldest city in the history of mankind, then someone somewhere in

the areas surrounding it should have heard of it, right? You would think so. What about those empires which were far away? So she went to the Assyrian writers like Shelane, Thei, San II, and Sak— not one word about Mecca. She went to the Babylonians, Nabonidus— not one word about Mecca. She went to the Roman writers like Melinus, Procopius of Cesaria, Strabo, and Pliny the Elder— not one word about Mecca. She went to the Persian Empire— not a line about Mecca. So then she decided, "Let's go further in; let's get to those empires that are closer

to Mecca. Perhaps they would have heard about Mecca." She went to Natim— not one word. Saite— not a word. Hite— not a word. Aite— not a word. The Kites— not one word. She even went across the sea over to the Nubians, the Axum, and the Abyssinian kingdoms— not one reference to Mecca. What do you see here? Everything surrounding it; not one of these kingdoms had heard of Mecca. Yet, of all people, they should have heard of it, right? Because they're the closest to it. She couldn't find any reference to Mecca in any of those kingdoms.

She had done what no one else had done before her; she actually went and read their texts. Why do you think they never heard of Mecca? Why is there no history of Mecca? Well, that's a good question, right? Let me give you a possible answer. Just look at these two pictures here. What do you notice? They're very— it's very— these are old pictures from the 1800s. There's no vegetation there at all, right? They're just basically stone and mud. They are bleak. The reason why they're in the desert— soil studies inform us that the soil there

has never been able to support vegetation at all. Why is that important? Here's why: Take a look. Look at these. What do you notice again? Photos taken from the 1800s to 1900s— it's a bleak city. It's in a desert; there is no vegetation. This is why it's important. When you look at these three or four maps, I took these down to Speaker's Corner back in 2019, held them up for all the Muslims to see there at Speaker's Corner, and I wanted them to look at it. I said, "Just take a look. What do you notice?

Everything about Mecca and Medina is in a desert. The central part with Medina and Mecca is all a desert. Where there's a desert, there's no water; where there's no water, there's no food; where there's no food, there's no people; where there's no people, there's no towns; where there's no towns, there's no cities; where there's no cities, there's no civilization; where there's no civilization, there is no history." How long did it take me to say that? Ten seconds, right? It only took me 10 seconds. I said it from the ladder. Every time Muslims came back to

me to confront me, I said, "Hold on a minute, there's no water there. If there's no water, there are no vegetation, no vegetation, no people, no people, no towns, no towns, no city, no cities, no history." It's as simple as that. You have to have water, folks. Notice everything has been up in the north. We've been saying everything's up in the north. Why? Because there's water up there! Mesopotamia, the land between the two rivers—that's why all the civilizations are up there. There's nothing in between. The Romans knew this; they talked about Arabia. They talked about

Arabia Petraea. Arabia Petraea was that northern part, what is now northern Jordan and Syria today. That was Arabia Petraea. But underneath that, in between, was Arabia Deserta. And then at the very bottom was Arabia Felix, which means the happy Arabia. But Arabia Deserta was in the middle; there was nothing at all because there was no reason to go there. If you have no water, don't go. Just like Mars— without water, there's no point in ever going there. But what about the Zum Zum? This is the comeback they always give. You're going to get this: If

there's no water, what are you going to do with the Zum Zum? Well, do you all know what the Zum Zum well is? All right, well, ask any Muslim, and they'll tell you what the Zum Zum well is. See, the Zum Zum well is the water that every Muslim wants to drink. If you go on pilgrimage, you have to drink the Zum Zum well because it has healing properties; it's a little sweet. There are 2 million people living in Mecca; they all drink the Zum Zum well when... People come to do the Hajj; that's another

2 million—that's 4 million people—all drink the Zum Zum. Well, if you go to any bookstore or any Muslim mosque, look in their stores, and you will see liters of Zum Zum water. Here in California, you can find Zum Zum water everywhere, all from one little well called the Zum Zum well. This is the well that Hagar came across when she was looking for water for Ishmael out in the desert. She runs between one mountain, one mountain called Mwa, and then she can't find any water. She runs between another mountain named Safa, can't find any water,

and she zips back and forth between these two mountains, looking for water, but she can't find water anywhere. Finally, she comes back to Ishmael, and there's this water bubbling up out of the ground. She says, “Zum, zum, zum, zum!” It means “stop, stop, stop, that's enough, that's enough.” That's what it means in Arabic: “that's enough.” Now, we're talking about 1900 BC, correct? If this is the case, then the Zum Zum water should have been there since 1900 BC. I was watching a discussion between David Chappelle and David Letterman. David Letterman is on the right; David

Chappelle is a great comic—I love his material—but he's become a Muslim, and so he converted. David Letterman was asking about why he’d become a Muslim, and in the conversation, he talks about this Zam Zam well, as he calls it. There’s this Zam Zam well in Mecca. He asks, “Why is it that you talk about this Zam Zam well?” Chappelle says it’s inexhaustible because, you know, everybody wants it; therefore, it has to be inexhaustible to accommodate the entire Muslim world of 1.8 billion. Chappelle says, “Yeah, I’ve been there. You can’t go, but I've been there, and

the Zam Zam well is there, and the water is inexhaustible.” He says it never runs out, implying that Allah provides the water for the 2 million who live there, as well as the 2 million who come on pilgrimage, and also the millions of Muslims around the world who buy it after their local Muslim stores. He said it’s inexhaustible; it comes from Allah Himself. So I wanted to find out about this, so I did some hunting around in the comments section of my videos. It was very clear that every Muslim I referred to was consistent in

their claims. I love YouTube because you get comments right away, and I can see what the Muslims are saying. I can see if they like or dislike the material, and boy do they dislike this stuff! But they always comment, and they provide me with a lot of information. They were claiming that it was from the time of Abraham; they were claiming it was from the time of Adam and Eve. They couldn't make up their minds. According to the current narrative, Hagar—not Sarah, his wife—after searching for water, found it and said, “Stop, stop”—that’s the name Zum

Zum. The water Muslims, like Chappelle, claim is inexhaustible—the cleanest of all waters, the purest of all waters—that's why it has these healing properties and can accommodate every pilgrim who comes to Mecca and the rest of the Muslim world who would like to drink it. Thus, it is bottled and used by millions around the world. Now, I wanted to make sure that I was getting it from the authority themselves, so I interviewed Hamid, who is the one that represents the Meccans, and he is the one that writes the official writing for the well. This is what

he said about the Zam Zam well: he said it sprang up about 5,000 years ago when Hagar went looking for water for Ishmael. She ran between Safa and Marwa seven times before finding Zum Zum, meaning “stop, flowing.” Water from the well has no impurities, with minerals and a heavy taste. Pilgrims buy it, and it’s shipped all over the world for its healing properties. It cost $187 million to modernize the well to accommodate the pilgrims; its source is rainfall going to Ibrahim and then to the underground aquifers. Therefore, it pours out 350 million liters of water;

it pumps out 11 million liters of water a day during Ramadan and 52 million liters of water a day from the Hajj. That’s a lot of water, folks—52 million liters of water a day! Allah Himself will supply it for eternity; that’s why it never runs out. So, that’s the official word on it. What do we know about the water? Well, we don’t know too much. The earliest documentation that we can find on any record is from the 1800s—that’s the oldest picture. It’s only 30 feet wide—not a very big well, is it? And at that time,

it was only 50 meters deep—not very deep. Here’s a picture looking down. Do you see much water down there? Just a little pond. That's the 1950 look into the well—not very much to accommodate millions and millions of liters. In 1953, they put a cap over it, and you would draw water out by hand; that’s as much water as you could get at a time—whatever you could get in a bucket. In 1953, a building was constructed over the well, and then in 1963, construction began to put the well underground. Here’s what it looks like today—just a

circle. Which means the wild is underneath, and when you go down, you can see there's even a museum there that shows you all the earlier, just different areas. Now, here's a niggling problem: in 1963, when they moved the well underground, they dug it deeper, so now it's now 31 m deep, yet it is now situated only 21 meters from the Kaaba. All right, 21 m—that's about 60 ft. Doesn't the well commemorate Hagar searching and then finding water in the desert for Ishmael in 1900 BC? Right now, stop and think: if Hagar is in Mecca to

begin with, with Abraham, and he throws her out of Mecca, she has to go out to the desert. Right? And she runs out of water. Right? She's out in the desert, 60 ft away. Do you see a problem there? So she's out in the desert, and she has to go between two mountains, Safa and Mawa, seven times. How far is Safa and Mawa from the Kaaba? 100 feet. If she had run out of water, why didn't she just go to the nearest house and knock on the door? Because she's still in Mecca, am I correct?

Because the Zamzam well is right there next to the Kaaba, just 60 ft away. So, obviously, there's a problem with this story. Nonetheless, let's go on. So that's the first problem. Doesn't this suggest a rather convenient man-made well? More than that, does the well supply all the water needs for Mecca? Mecca has 2 million inhabitants; it doubles to 4 million during the Hajj. Mecca needs 1,481 liters a second for its population—that's equivalent to 51 Olympic-sized pools per day. Yet the Zamzam well only supplies 19 liters a second, and that's only after it rains. So where

do they get all this water for the 2 million Meccans and the 2 million pilgrims, plus the many millions who buy the drink all around the world? That adds up to 1 billion drinks, folks. Not from a sissy dinky 3-meter deep well, for sure. So I decided to do some scratching around, and I just used Google. In the 1950s, the well wasn't very deep; that’s as far as it was, just 30 feet across. Today, one can’t go to it, but you can get pictures of it. When you look at it, notice what you see: it's

been capped. But do you see pipes going down into it and pipes coming out of it? Yes, can you see them here? They even give you pictures of the pipes going in and the pipes coming out—that's inside the well. You notice not very big pipes, but nonetheless, they're pipes. It seems these pipes bring water to the well from where it is, then pumped back out of the various locations in the Masjid al-Haram and onto the bottling plants outside Mecca. But from where does this water originate, if not from the Zamzam well itself? Is it a

miracle from Allah Himself? It comes from desalination plants. The world's largest is in Jeddah, sending clean water to Mecca. And who made those desalination plants? We did. Thank you, Bechtel Corporation, United States. The world's largest water storage unit that carries and holds all this water was made by the United Kingdom—11 of them, largest in the world—proving that all the desalination plants are built by Aona, Canada, and Spain, Bechtel, Virginia, and Black & Veatch in Kansas City, United States. It has nothing to do with Allah; it has everything to do with America. Thank you. Thus, the

Zamzam water is American, Spanish, and Canadian-made and has nothing to do with the Mecca Zamzam well. And the Saudi Arabians are laughing all the way to the bank because they're making a mint on this. Now let's go one step further: where did the water for Mecca come from in the 8th Century? Let's go back. We want to go back in time because this is something we need to ask—what about the 8th century when Mecca was created? King Zubaydah went down in the late 800s, early 9th century. By the 9th century, she was there—a wife of

Harun al-Rashid, who died in 799. She was known for her serious and dedicated intelligence. She went to Mecca in the late 8th century, early 9th century, when Mecca was well known. By this time, Mecca was the sanctuary, as you’re going to find out, and she noticed that there was not enough water. So she built this aqueduct. There are the ruins from it right there. But look where this aqueduct comes from; it comes from Wadi Numan. Now notice right there, you see the Jamarat, you see the Masjid al-Haram, you see the minaret city and Al-Azizia, where

the water is then placed. It comes all the way from Wadi Numan; it was a 38,000-meter supplying chair of water, 600 to 800 cubic meters a day. Many renovations in 1952—Jaffa, I won't go through his name because I'll desecrate it—but he gave 100,000 dinars to recommission it. This was also recommissioned in 1236, and then recommissioned in 1328, and then 1410, and then also in 1510, and again in 1578, and also in 1880. Finally, in 1880, you have the Aysub, an Ottoman naval officer, who then recommissioned it. Finally, in 1926, with all these recommissionings, King Abdulaziz

decided to use desalinated water instead, and that was done in the last century. So the second problem is: is there more groundwater or desalinated water in Mecca? There is an article online that showed the graph of the percentage of desalinated water that was consumed by each city in Saudi Arabia in 2020. Just three years ago, it looked like the majority of water from the ground was groundwater, not desalination. The graph we were looking at was actually incorrect; here is the corrected graph on the right. Notice just how much desalination water Mecca and Medina need today:

98% for Mecca and 99.5% for Medina. Almost all of their water comes from desalination plants. Thank you, United States! So, where is this water stored? It's stored in huge tanks. There you can see Mas'al-Haram; there is Mina City; over there are the three Jamarat; there is Maanat. Those are the five stages with 4 million people during the Hajj. Where is the water stored to accommodate them? In these tanks. These are the Mauna bulk reservoirs, large storage tanks where they are stored. Jeddah now has 11 tanks all made by those gentlemen up there from London, England,

and the Atkins team. They now have made the largest storage tanks in the world to give people this free, fresh water from Allah Himself. Not from Allah, but from the West. Now, we're going to end with this, and I see we're going to have to stop here after this and go for a break. But I want to end with the stages of the Hajj. When we look at Islam, we notice that much of Islam borrows its material from other sources. If you are a man-made religion and you suddenly want to create an identity for yourself,

remember that in the 7th century, the Byzantines are in the north, and the Arabs now control what is today Syria and Jordan, mainly because that used to be controlled by the Sasanids, the Persians. But in 622, you have the Byzantines coming down; Heraclius is the emperor and destroys the Sasanids, but then turns and goes towards the West because he has a lot of problems on his Western borders. He just pretty much leaves this area alone, but the Arabs now suddenly were freed up; they now had no more slavery under the Sasanids, the Persians, and so

many different city-states were being formed all over the place until 661, when finally Mu'awiya creates the first Umayyad caliphate. He is living in Damascus. Isn't that curious? What's he doing in Damascus? Why is he writing down to Medina if he was a Muslim? After the break, you'll see why. He then rules until 680, and then comes the Umayyad family, and they take over from 680. Then you have Abd al-Malik, who is the greatest of all the Umayyads. He is a Christian. We are going to prove that after the break, but he is not a Christian

like you and me, who believe in the Trinity. He is an anti-Trinitarian Christian who does not believe in the Trinity and does not believe in the Divinity of Jesus. So, he means to do something because his greatest power, his greatest threat, are the Byzantines up in the Northwest. They are his political threat and also his theological threat. But he is a caliph, and he controls all the land from Tripoli all the way to India and from Turkey all the way down to Yemen. He is, probably, the biggest superpower of his day. But here's the problem:

the Byzantines and the Jews have a prophetic line right from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He is an Ishmaelite; he calls himself a Mite, so do all of them. The Arabs are from Hagar; their line -- after Ishmael -- just disappears. There is no prophetic line. Do you see a problem there? The Jews and the Christians not only have a prophetic line, they also have scriptures: the Old and New Testaments. What do the Ishmaelites have? No scripture. So here you are, the second biggest political power of the day, and your biggest threat are these guys in

the north. You've got to compete with them, but you also have to create an identity for yourself. You need a prophet, you need a book, you need a man and a book. So, you've got to do something; you borrow. You can't create anything from that; you have to borrow. But who do you borrow from? Well, you go to your cousins. Hold on a minute; you’re going to see just how much they borrowed. More than that, you've got to have a place that is your sanctuary. Now, Abd al-Malik and Mu'awiya's sanctuary was Petra; we now know

that because all the mosques were facing Petra up until 706. It's obvious Petra was pretty important, and Petra was really the center of trade at that time, not Mecca, because there was no reference to it. So if your place where you bow, your sanctuary, is Petra, you've got to then create and put a man there or create and put a prophet there. The problem is, what prophet are you going to put? Because there's no prophet after Ishmael, you've got to create a prophet who has a book. That's why you borrow right, left, and center. But

then you create a new sanctuary, and we're going to get to that. It's not you who does that; it's Ibn Zubayr who does that in 687, and it's the Abbasids who take over the power from the Umayyads in 750. They need to have their sanctuary; they choose Mecca as their sanctuary. I'm kind of jumping ahead, but once they choose Mecca, what are they going to put in that sanctuary? You've got to put something that you already know that everybody else knows. So let's go to that sanctuary now. You can't go to Mecca; you're not permitted

to. But you've seen pictures of Mecca, have you not? And what do you notice? You always go to that building there that's called the Kaaba, and the Kaaba in Arabic means "Cube." The Kaaba in Hebrew also means "Cube" as well. Did you know that? It's the same word: Cube, Cube. So where was there a cube in Hebrew? The Holy of Holies, right? Was a cube, am I correct? So here you have the Kaaba, and you circumambulate seven times going counterclockwise. You've seen the pictures. Why, in the world, do they circumambulate going counterclockwise seven times? Well,

seven is the holy number, is it not? For whom? The Jews, who circumambulated around their Kaaba in Jerusalem, right? Why seven times? Because of Jericho, right? It was Jericho that they went seven times counterclockwise. So let's look at that. They're circumambulating seven times going counterclockwise. Ask any Muslim why they do that; they don't know. So when they don't know something, what are they supposed to do? Chapter 10:97 and Chapter 21:7 of the Quran say if you have any questions, go to the Jews and the Christians, the People of the Book, and they will tell you.

So tell them why they're circumambulating. It's because the Jews did it; you're just following the Jews. Now, Gibson thought that this was being done there in Petra, which is true; that was being done there in Petra. But where do you think the Jews in Petra got it from? They got it from here. That is where the Holy of Holies is. Do you see what is today the Dome of the Rock? That is where the Temple Mount is. That's Mount Moriah; that's where the Temple stood. The Kaaba was the cube that was there on the Temple

Mount, and they would circumambulate in that open area there that's still open today, going counterclockwise seven times. So they just borrowed from the Jews. Now, after they circumambulate around the Kaaba seven times, what do they do next? They run back and forth between two mountains called Safa and Marwa. You can't quite see it there or here. That's Safa at the top, and that's Marwa. I'm sorry; it's off the screen. But Safa is S-A-F-A, and Marwa is M-A-R-W-A. Safa and Marwa, two mountains. Remember I told you these are the two mountains that Hagar is looking for

water. She runs to Safa, runs to Marwa, runs seven times looking for water, can't find it, comes to where Ishmael is, and she sees this water bubbling out of the ground and says, "Zum zum, that's enough, stop, stop!" And that's where the Zum Zum well is. So look at these two rocks. Notice those are the mountains of Safa and Marwa. Do they look like mountains to you? They're 20 feet high! Children can climb on those, can't they? Not really mountains. So, obviously, this is not the original Marwa; this is not the original Safa, am I

correct? 'Cause if that were the case, it should be 30, 40 miles out in the desert where she really had run out of water. Here, she can just walk next door and knock on the first door she needs to get water. Obviously, these are facsimiles of what was the original. Much like when you go to Las Vegas, you notice there is an Eiffel Tower there; that's not the original Eiffel Tower. There is also the pyramid there; that's certainly not the original pyramid. Those are facsimiles just to get your money from you. So obviously, these are

facsimiles to commemorate an original Safa and an original Marwa. Where could they be? There's a Safa and Marwa in Petra because that was used after Jerusalem. But the original Safa and Marwa are in Jerusalem. There’s Mount Moriah there. If you look there, see where it says "Temple Mount"? That's Mount Moriah. In Arabic, Moriah is Marwa, so that's the Arabic form of Moriah. You go down to the Kidron Valley, and then you come back up to Mount Scopus. Can you see? Those are mountains. Mount Scopus is in Arabic Safa. So that's what they have done; they've

just borrowed from the Jews again. You have to borrow in order to create. If you have nothing to begin with, what's interesting is they're still there today. Now, after Safa, then many of the traditions were borrowed. I'm not going to go through all of them because I see we're almost out of time, and we want to have a break. We do know that pretty much, the Kaaba was borrowed from Jerusalem. We know that Safa and Marwa were borrowed from Jerusalem. The Hill of Arat is not a borrowing because it's one thing that was introduced in

Petra. And then, you have the Jamarat, which I want to just point out. One thing here, the Jamarat is a pillar. See the pillar on the left there? Just one pillar that commemorates Satan. What the Muslims are to do is go and throw rocks: 49 rocks. You're right; you've been there; you've done it, haven't you? 49? No, you haven't. Okay, but you know what I'm talking about—49 rocks. The problem is, look at the crowds behind, and if you're not a good aim, you hit the person in front of you, don't you? People were dying from

getting hit by these rocks! So the Arabian government had to do something, so they rebuilt it to these beautiful four buildings, but three of them are Jamarat, and the other one in the middle is a stairway to go up. them because they're on many levels. This way, you can throw stones to your heart's content, and you don't hit anybody. That has now alleviated that problem. But here's a problem: if you now have three jamarat, what do they mean? See, if you have one jamarat, it's the devil. You're throwing stones at the devil; you can't throw

at three devils. There's no such thing as three devils. So what has the Arabian government done today? Since 1980, when those were built, they have now changed the narrative. Now you're not throwing a stone at a devil; you're throwing it at the Temptations of Abraham, which means they've changed the narrative. While we've been alive, I was here in 1980—in our lifetime, they're changing the narrative. They're changing the story right in front of our eyes. If this is happening in our lifetime, why are we so surprised that this has been done all the way through the

last 1,400 years? If you need a story, you create it as you go. If you need a theological background, you create it as you go. And we're seeing it happen in just the last 40 years. There is the Zum Zum well. The Zum Zum well looks like it comes from the Pool of Siloam in Jerusalem. It has the same function as in Jerusalem, and obviously, we know that's there. Now we get to the Black Stone. Thank God this was not borrowed! What are you going to do with the Black Stone? Folks, at the very center

of Islam, remember, Islam's very clear statement of faith is that God is one. There is only one God, and that God is eternal. That God is the God that gives you forgiveness— that is the God that eradicates your sins. Am I correct? Only God can do that. So what in the world is that Black Stone doing there right there on the Eastern corner of the Kaaba? As the pilgrims are going around seven times, they kiss that stone to get forgiveness. How can a stone give you forgiveness? That is the seat of idolatry. Well, to understand

that, you need to do a historical study. Again, this is what we're doing today. Let's look back in history. What we find is that if you look at the historical context for the Black Stone, it was discovered by the Phoenicians in about 300 to 400 BC. It looks like a meteorite that came flashing across the sky. They thought it was from God. They collected it, they held it, they revered it. The Roman Emperor Aelius Antonius Alabas grabbed that stone and brought it to Damascus. Some say he brought it to Rome; either way, he brought it.

What he did is that he darted this belief: that wherever the Black Stone was, so was the presence of God. So, if you have that stone, then returned down to Damascus, and from Damascus brought down by the Umayyads to their sanctuary, which is in Petra, at that time— that’s where the presence of God is. But in 685, Zubayr rebels against the Emperor Abd al-Malik. He is then killed there, but before he is killed by Al-Hajjaj, he sends his wives and children down to the South. Where do you think he sent them? To Mecca. But what

did they take with them? The Black Stone. By taking the Black Stone with him, all the pilgrims started going down to where the Black Stone was. You follow the Black Stone; that's why it's still there today. That's why Muslims can't get rid of it, yet it's a complete contradiction to everything Islam believes. That's why you need to ask them this question: why is that Black Stone there, and why in the world are you kissing it, and yet you're still saying there is only one God? Hammer this home, folks! They do not know how to answer

this. Can you see how contradictory this is? Now, when was Mecca possibly constructed? We need to ask the rocks, particularly this rock. This is a rock that was found in Ta'if a number of years ago, and it's written in Arabic, not in Aramaic, which is the Arabic that we find in the Quran— hugely important. Why? This is what it says in Arabic: this was written in the year the Kaaba was built, in the 78th year, the Forbidden Place of Bing— that is where the Kaaba is today. Notice the word "built". It was nothing like "was

rebuilt." Muslims are trying to say the word is "rebuilt"; no, it's saying "built." You need to know your Arabic on this. So we can assume that this inscription, which is located 75 km from Mecca on the route to Ta'if— on the route that goes up the mountain, up to the plateau— refers to the site of the Kaaba, which later became Mecca. This would suggest that the Kaaba, and thus Mecca, was built around 697 to 698, because 78 years after 622 AD would make it 698. Thus, it was constructed during the reign of Abd al-Malik in

the late 7th century, and not at the time of Adam and Eve, nor even during the time of Muhammad. This is a much later city, constructed a good 78 years after Muhammad. Folks, we can now pretty much know when Mecca was created and when it was chosen and why— because that's where the Black Stone was. Even the Quran suggests that Mecca is not where it was created. Quranic Arabic is from the north. Notice if you look at the Quran and look at the Arabic in the Quran; it has endings of words that are not what

would be in Mecca or Medina. Tar, the Al Makur, these are the endings—the unstressed inflectional vowels. If you look at "T," the two superimposed dots that give you the feminized form, the Al Mak, the word-final dotless "yah" placed at the end of the word where the "ALF" cannot occur goes back to an early "a." Then the definite article "Al," the "Al"—these four categories are right through the Quran, but they all come from Natian Aramaic. Look where Natian Aramaic is; it's way up in the red rectangle. This is from Jordan, what is present-day Jordan. So, what

Arabic would they have used in Mecca? Medina? They used "Seic Arabic." "Seic Arabic" is what was used in Yemen, down where the big red square—uh—square is. That's much further south. "Saar" doesn't have the "tarb," or the "AL" of "makur," or the definite article, none of these, which means that the Quran, which has all of these, would have to have been written up in the North. Are you starting to hear me say the same thing over and over again? The North. The north. Is it getting kind of tiring? It looks like everything we're looking for that

is important is from the north; nothing from Mecca. Medina, Chronic Arabic; Natian Aramaic existed 600 miles further north, while the 7th-century Arabic of Mecca, in the hij, which is "SE," would have accommodated the text of the Quran had it been used, eradicating the "Gat" problems, which we're going to talk about later on. So now let’s conclude with Mecca. Conclusion: Mecca is foundational for both Muhammad and the Quran, so without it, they both fall. Mecca is important for Muslims because they believe that it is the earliest and most important city in the history of mankind. Yet

references to Mecca in the Quranic traditions do not hold up historically. In other words, for instance, that it’s near Sodom and Gomorrah, or that Abraham, Ishmael, and Hagar lived there. What’s more, we also can find out that other references suggest that Mecca is filled with lush fruit trees, grass, grains, and streams, which make no sense, as Mecca has always been in a desert with bad and depleted desert soil. Ironically, though, it’s claimed to be the greatest city in history, the Quran itself only refers to it once—chapter 48: 24—signifying that the author either did not consider

it that important, or it only came into existence much later on. Geographically speaking, the Quran places almost all of the 65 references either 600 to 1,000 miles further north than Mecca, suggesting the author of the Quran came from there. Even the Arabic word endings that I just talked about using the Quran—like that "Al Makur," the definite article, or "Natian Aramaic," which again is situated 600 miles further north—Mecca is where the Muslims contend that between 70 to 300 prophets are buried. Yet, with all the buildings being constructed there requiring deep foundations, they have yet to dig

up even one. It seems that the Saudi Arabians, as a result of Mecca's lack of history, are cementing up all the evidence, suggesting that even they are skeptical of its history, or they don’t want the rest of the world to find out. I don’t know if you know, but Muhammad’s wife’s building has now been cemented up, also where his birthplace has now been cemented up. They have just eradicated all these historical sites. Why do you think they're doing that? When we ask the surrounding civilizations if they have heard of Mecca, not one knows of its

existence, including those empires which are situated immediately close by. Yet other much less significant towns close to Mecca, such as Marib, Sanʿā, Tyre, Kufa, Petra, Mamra, are all well known and well documented, but not Mecca. When noting the trade route through these towns, we find that they are all located in the western plateau while Mecca is over 3,000 feet down below it, proving it was not on any trade route. Mecca, before 741, which is considered the earliest documentary evidence for it anywhere, simply has no history. Street. And even that reference is located in southern Turkey,

which is too far north. When Tabari, in the 2nd century, wrote his book on Arabian geography, he never listed Mecca, so that none of the earliest 15th to 16th century European maps of Arabia have Mecca listed on them. Neither the land trade route nor the sea trade route along the eastern coast of Africa supports an early Mecca, proving none of the trade went via Mecca at all, confronting the notion that it was the center of trade. Number six: the reason trade needs people, and people need water and food and towns, all of which never existed

in Mecca until the mid-8th century, over 100 years after Islam was supposedly created. Despite claims for the Zamzam well that Allah provides its inexhaustible water for over one billion believers, it gets all its water from desalination plants built in the USA and Europe because of Mecca's water problem. Queen Ofas' aqueduct was built in 801, which then had to be refurbished nine times in the subsequent 974 years due to the overbearing need for potable water and then finally replaced with desalination plants after 1926. And finally, Muslims have no idea why all the earliest qiblas were facing

Petra or Jerusalem up to 706, nor why none are facing Mecca until 715, suggesting therefore that Mecca was chosen in the 8th century as their final sanctuary. The antecedents for Mecca and pilgrimage make more sense with Jerusalem than they do with Petra, as they are not only earlier, but they are many of the same functions. Conclusively, certainly someone, somewhere, at some time, should have known about the city, yet no one anywhere, no at any time has. Proving that it has never existed at the time of Muhammad, nor during early Islam. So, if Mecca did not

exist, then where did both Muhammad and the Quran come from? That's next.